Dragon Dice™ - Dwarves

The Dwarves

Heavy Melee	Light Melee	Missile	Cavalry	Magic
Footman	Sentry	Crossbowman	Pony Rider	Theurgist
Sergeant	Patroller	Marksman	Lizard Rider	Thaumaturgist
Warlord	Skirmisher	Crack-Shot	Mammoth Rider	Wizard
Androsphinx	Gargoyle	Roc	Umber Hulk

Introduction

I'm going to take a slightly different approach to the Dwarves than I did with the Firewalkers…

First you should already have looked at the dice and compared them to the other races. As you can see the Dwarves have a lot of saves, good maneuvers, and a nice melee punch, however most people tend to ignore the missile units. Look at these again. The Crack shot is one of the best missile units in the game. So what you have is a very balanced race with each unit type having icons that it can use and very few "wasted" icons.

Second the Dwarves have a terrain, which contains both of their colors or aspects. This is a great advantage over other races and on top of that they get racial advantages at this same terrain. So always bring a Highland terrain when playing Dwarves.

Third, the Highland terrain has 3 magic faces, only 2 missile, and two melee faces. This is almost perfect for the Dwarf player since he can use magic here. This is one of the few races that can defend their home terrain from the enemy at the beginning of the game. Choosing your 8th face can be tough but there are some you can leave off right away. Standing Stones are not going to help an all Dwarf army and even if you are mixing with other races like Firewalkers or Lava Elves you really don't need a Standing Stone to help you. Towers are not used unless you don't want the other play gaining an advantage at a certain terrain, although don't rule out a Dwarf Missile army that you can spring on some one by surprise. So we have a Temple or City left… The city will allow you to bring back units faster and the temple will allow you to bury units a bit quicker; the protection from black magic is very nice if you are not using it yourself. I will leave it up to you to choose which style of play you want to try.

Stradegy

So what do you do with these red and gold guys? Well for starters you really want to keep them on the Highlands where you have the advantage, but you can also travel to other terrain without losing anything (unlike the Coral Elves and Lava Elves which loose maneuvers as saves) so don't be afraid to take the fight to the other player when you need too. You can always support yourself with magic by casting Transmute Rock to Mud (TRtM) so you keep your maneuver advantage.

Another tactic that works well with the Dwarves is the Dragon Victory. What's that, you ask? Simply sit at a terrain with magic and protect yourself while casting Dancing Lights and summoning Dragons to the other players' terrain. Placing as many Ash Storms at that terrain as possible. Let the Dragon do the work and once it kills off enough units… Path to Victory: Path a lone Mammoth Rider (so that his SAI can ignore any spells cast on him or the terrain) with or without a Speed Slipper to the terrain while slowing the other players with TRtM's. Ash Storms are still good since they cannot affect your SAI.

The Mad Rush: This is the charging of a Dwarf army on a Highland terrain and if you have an 8th face also it is amazing the amount of damage that can be done. Look at a single Mammoth Rider. If it rolls a Trample during a charge that is 3 points of maneuvers and 3 points of melee for a total of 6 points of damage. At a highland terrain or 8th face this becomes 6 points of maneuver and 3 points of melee, which gives 9 points of damage. Finally at the 8th face at a Highland terrain you get 12 points of maneuver and 3 points of melee for a grand total of 15 points of damage. No other die in the game can equal this on a single roll and only a Dragon, Sprite Swarm, or Leopard Rider can even get close and it will take a bit of luck to get the multiple rolls needed to accomplish this. So a single army of Mammoth Riders, around 5 in a 36-health game, could do 75 points of damage.

Magical assistance: The Dwarves also have another ability that no other race has because of its spell ability. The Dwarves can bring destroy and bring back magical items. This can help you when your army has been wiped out and you lose several health worth of magical items to the Buried Unit Area. Simply bring them back to the casting army and go fight again. AND if the other player has gold items destroy them from afar while risking nothing yourself and you get the added bonus of killing one of his units.

The main thing to remember about the Dwarves is to use Dust to Dust to bury the other players' units whenever you kill them since you have no magical attack spells of your own, except Explode Stone which is very, very limited in its use. Protect your larger- health units with Earthen Armor from the start of the game. Cast this as often as you can and protect even the most common troops from things like Firebolt and Lightning Strike.

Lastly, one of the sneakiest and least-used spells in the game is Create Mountain. Sure it is 9 points to cast but look at what you get… Double your maneuvers at a Flatland or Swampland terrain and you could cast red magic here. So save up the magic and Path a unit to one of these terrains and Create a Mountain. Imagine the other players surprise when your single Mammoth Rider gets 6 points of maneuvers at his terrain beating his Wind Walk spell (remember that ties go to the acting player). Bang… a quick victory.

Army Construction

Okay, now it's time to look at some of the armies that can be made with Dwarves. Let's start with the all- Dwarf armies and go from there:

Use your strengths by getting as many maneuver and magic units as possible at your highland terrain:

18 Pony Riders and 18 Theurgists at Highland City terrain is a good start.

Mix in some Mammoth Riders and Wizards for those all important SAIs, giving you a nice mix:

2 Mammoth Riders
2 Lizard Riders
4 Pony Riders
2 Wizards
2 Thaumaturgists
4 Theurgists

Highland Cities are a good choice for this army as well. This provides you with a good balance of units and health. Remember to promote as often as possible so you can use your magic to its utmost affect.

Mix in a few magical items (bring Red so another Dwarf player can't destroy them) into the above armies by taking out some of the commons and possibly an uncommon.

If you play against a player that loves to just sit back and cast magic at you put a Gargoyle or two into your armies to ruin his day. Just remember to roll them.

That missile army that people don't expect can be hidden somewhat:

1 Mammoth Rider
1 Crack-Shot
1 Lizard Rider
1 Marksman
2 Pony Riders
2 Crossbowman

Place these in your horde and a lot of players will think you just had a bad roll at the beginning of the game.

1 Wizard
1 Crack-Shot
1 Thaumaturgist
1 Marksman
1 Theurgist
2 Crossbowman

These guys should be at your campaign and again when rolling you can down play the fact that they are not all magicians. Put that last Theurgist at your home terrain and most players will think you have the standard Cav/Magic army. On the first turn bring everyone together and go for a missile terrain.

So, what other races go well with the Dwarves? The first choice would be the lava elves since they have a racial ability that shares the highland terrain. They can help with red magic and their maneuvers will count as saves. You can mix these races however you want even to the point of having more elves then Dwarves. This is a very powerful army. Just ask, Mark Wiker, or more to the point, any one that has played him.

Another race that goes very well with the Dwarves are the Firewalkers. Firewalker magic can really help the Dwarf army since they have nice attack spells and the Dwarves give the firewalkers the saves they need. I used an army like this to win the Nationals and it put a great showing on at the World Championships. I lost to a very similar army based on Firewalker/Swamp Stalkers played by Scott Ostrander. He simply out buried me during one turn and that made all the difference.

Scalders can be combined with the Dwarves if you really want to do some missile damage and again the Dwarves can provide saves to a race with out that many themselves.

Conclusion

For one of the "basic" races in the game the Dwarves are one of the few that can be combined with also most any other race and do very well. They do not have to stay at the "home" terrain to win and they don't even need a lot of magic. I would say this is the first race players should play with until they get the hang of Dragon Dice™ and even the most advanced player will find the Dwarves a fun race to play since there are so many ways you can win the game.

-Will 'Cygnusthearmsdealer'